Q: I usually head home on crowded train 949, which leaves Central Station toward Deux-Montagnes at 5:25 p.m. It stops briefly at four stations before it gets to Bois-Franc station. There are two parallel tracks from Central Station to Bois-Franc, after which the two converge into one. Consequently, train 949 must sit for five to 10 minutes, unable to proceed until train 952 from Deux-Montagnes clears the single track and pulls into Bois-Franc.

In other words, outbound 949 sits idle with upward of 1,200 to 1,400 people aboard waiting for inbound 952 with its 50 or so passengers. It seems the priority should go to the busy train, not the nearly empty one. So here’s my solution:

Two stops farther west at the Roxboro-Pierrefonds station, the route splits into two tracks. Why doesn’t the AMT hold the sparsely populated 952 there, to let the crowded 949 carry on without delay on the single track from Bois-Franc through Sunnybrooke and then to Roxboro, where each train can pass unobstructed?

It’s a simple, minor schedule change that would affect only a few dozen people, at most, and benefit the many 949ers homeward bound at the end of their busy day.

Sandy Weigens

A. That suggested change would have a domino effect on other trains and would negatively affect the train line’s timetable, according to the Agence métropolitaine de transport.

“You have to look at the entire system to understand the impact that would have on our customers and on management of our trains,” said AMT spokesperson Claudia Martin.

In this case, train 952 gets priority because the train is heading to downtown’s Central Station to pick up passengers, Martin said. The train becomes the 953, which leaves downtown at 6:20 p.m.

If nearly empty train 952 was held back to give priority to train 949, the later 953 from Central Station would be delayed 15 minutes. That would affect the 1,100 people typically on the 953.

And pushing back the departure of the 953 train by 15 minutes would space trains out too much, leaving a schedule that doesn’t meet the needs of riders, Martin said.

In February, the AMT purchased the Deux-Montagnes line from Canadian National in a $92-million deal.

That will make it easier to eventually double the tracks along the 7.5 kilometres between Bois-Franc and Roxboro-Pierrefonds stations. But it has not set aside the money for that project. In its latest capital-works projections, the AMT said doubling the tracks would cost $53 million.

Transport Quebec has reopened Girouard Ave. access to Highway 15

Q. Can I access Highway 15 south via Girouard Ave. just south of Sherbrooke St.?

Larry O’Connor

A. Yes, Transport Quebec opened this access — which takes drivers to the Champlain Bridge and Highway 20 west — in October. It had been closed since 2010 when the city of Montreal made Girouard two-way to relieve traffic caused by the closing of Décarie Blvd. at de Maisonneuve Blvd. so a train bridge could be rebuilt.

The reopening was part of an effort to relieve traffic in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Local city councillor opposes Cavendish extension

Last week in this space, the city of Montreal said “all local officials” in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough support the long-discussed idea of linking the Côte-St-Luc and St-Laurent portions of Cavendish Blvd.

That prompted a call from Jeremy Searle, city councillor for Loyola district, which encompasses the N.D.G. portion of Cavendish. He and two other borough councillors recently voted against a motion in favour of the extension.

“The population is ferociously opposed” to the extension, Searle said. “In the 1990s, we fought it and killed it, then and we’re going to do it again this time. It will be disastrous for residential N.D.G. It’s (a Transport Quebec) scheme to divert Decarie Expressway traffic.”

Your STM Opus card can be registered online

After a recent column about registering Opus cards, a reader emailed to say she could not find the pertinent page on the Société de transport de Montreal website (stm.info).

It will take you to an online form. You’ll have to fill it out and attach a digital photo of your Opus card.

Cards can also be registered in person at an STM service centre. Addresses are on the STM site (search: register Opus).

Those with reduced-fare Opus cards have nothing to worry about — their cards are automatically registered.

If a registered Opus card is lost or stolen, any valid fares remaining on it will be replaced, free of charge.

Squeaky Wheels mailbag

With Yellow Line down, cyclists have no option (Gazette, March 17)

With no bike racks on the shuttle buses between Montreal and Longueuil, I feel like a second-class citizen whose transport choice (a cocktail of bike and public transport) is not respected. even though politicians would like us to leave our car at home.

Mario Grenier

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Squeaky Wheels: Full Deux-Montagnes train waits so empty one can zoom by

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